Blog Archive

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All The Money in the World, How the Forbes 400 Make And Spend Their Fortunes.

Written by Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan, this book examines members of the Forbes 400 list. The Forbes 400 list has been compiled every year since 1982 as a list of the 400 richest Americans. The list is published by the Forbes Magazine, and was the idea of Malcom Forbes, who was a firm believer in Wealth building. The list is based on the personal fortune of its members. The list has attracted attention since its inception, and some of those who have been named in the list have even sued Forbes, wanting to keep the extent of their wealth private. In 1982 you needed around 75 million dollars to make the list, in 2007 you will need to be a billionaire. The book is pretty well written and flows nicely. At times it can be a little dry, but all in all it was a pleasant read.

While I have a goal of having 2650 people in my tree by years end (and I think that this can be done) I have a bigger goal of getting the tree Documented in an appropriate manner. To that end I have spent a great deal of time recently cleaning up the sources I use in my tree. One of the efforts that I have undertaken is attaching images to the sources If I have them. This is useful for a number of reasons, First off, you no longer have to leave the family tree section of the webpage to see a document, now you can view it along side the individual that the record pertains to. For the record, most of my sources are United States census records, and as such I have named the file using the year of the census followed by the head of the Household.

Before we start, I am not an economist, and I have never taken an economics class, this is just my opinion, so take it or leave it.

It has been hard to miss all the news about how the economy is not doing well, and that we are looking at a recession. The story of our floundering economy has become big enough that it has even topped the list of voter concerns for the 2008 Election (we are more concerned about the economy that the war in Iraq). With all that said, how did we get to where we are? Lots of people blame it on the housing slump, and while I am sure that has something to do with it, I do not think that is the real cause.

I have been a pretty big fan of Richard Preston’s work. Perhaps his best know work is The Hot Zone. He has also written The Demon in the Freezer, and The Cobra Event. I have read each of those titles and I really enjoyed all of them. So when I saw a new Preston book out, I figured that I should go ahead and read it.